April 2004
Fished our home waters Easter weekend, Pine Island Sound. Winter is definitely over. The dry flats are gone and water is pushing deep into mangrove roots that have been mostly dry for months. The fish are moving into the back as well.
Angie is looking for a particular redfish to bring her IGFA world record list to double digits. We've seen many of its brothers and sisters over the winter but either I couldn't get her set up, or the cast wasn't exactly perfect, or the fish wasn't hungry, or it was scared of . . . whatever. It's amazing how challenging one can make this sport of fishing; PETA would be proud of us!
We haven't been on the local waters for three weeks and the conditions have totally changed so we were happy to find fish. Many would have met Angie's specifications except for one thing: they did not accept her offer even after inspecting it for 15-20 feet.
Near the end of the day, we eased into a tiny, shallow cove that usually holds reds. Hunting was slow. She got a shot at a huge red who spooked while the fly line was still in the air. Moments later a small bull shark cruised by. No wonder the reds were gone.
This little cove is fed by a Pine Island creek. Usually it is too shallow to get to the back, even in Black Fly, but there was a good 8 inches of water now. Time to explore. The back of the cove narrows into a 30 foot wide by 60 deep shallow lagoon before disappearing into the mangroves.
I eased the little boat to the edge of the pocket. This looked fishy. We were holding our breath when first one, then two, then four over slot reds revealed themselves with a slight movement in the shadows. Restricted by mangroves behind and in front, Angie was jammed into a near impossible shot. With the risk of spooking the fish, I spun the boat from a backhand to a forehand shot and poled the stern as far into the mangroves as it would go. Now her shooting window was better but the fish were not happy.
She had her eye on a big red lying in the seam of the creek bed, about two feet deep. With a steeple cast to clear the mangrove behind her she laid out about 50' of line and began to strip the muddler past the red's face. He didn't move. Then a smaller fish moved in below the fly and followed a few feet before surging with flared gills to inhale the meal.
Angie setup on the fish with maximum pressure of her 9wt Sage XP.
<There is less than 15 feet between the bow and the prop roots . . .
. . . but she keep him in the clear.
The smallest of the bunch was this six pounder . . .
. . . who was released to grow out of the slot with his brothers.
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